I've got one left.

Japanese girls playing basketball at Manzanar Incarceration Camp, Owens Valley, CA. Photo 1 by Francis Stewart. Photo 2 Merritt Photo Collection.

In case you missed it: scientists found this sign of possible past life on Mars! My latest for Nat Geo: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

What happens when a Nat'l Geographic animals editor goes for a nature walk:

Good morning! It’s Tuesday August 19th 2025! Already? Crikey! (Out this very month in 1960, just 65 yrs ago, Tales To Astonish #13, with its cover featuring the mighty Groot by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, Stan Goldberg & Artie Simek.) You be careful out there among them English, John Book.

This is the logo for the now-decommissioned DataFerrett tool from the U.S. Census Bureau. Every bureaucracy should have a mascot.

i'm probably not gonna buy a vintage tape machine on reverb

Washington DC has 702,000 people, is 45% Black and has 0 senators Wyoming has 590,000 people, is 86% white and has 2 senators DC needs a state with proper representation, not a military takeover

Intrigued by the question, am reskeeting this in the hopes that one of you have insights.

I mentioned stardrift.live in the stream and just wanted to share it so you could see! it's a work in progress. it just creates randomized simulations right now that you can kinda watch unfold.

Thinking I should write my credit union and ask them to switch away from using Mastercard for cc services. Every Bandcamp Friday, Mastercard shuts me down, with a flurry of "suspicious activity" alerts. I do this every month! You get ~3% to do one job! Why is buying from musicians suspicious?

My surprising fact for today. Needed the centroid to vertex distance for this cuboctahedron. Thought I'd got the sum wrong; it is the same as the edge length! Apparently the only polyhedron where this is true!🧪

TIL the Architect of the Capitol has a glossy magazine, if you want real behind-the-scenes operations. In this month's issue (vol 30): how they managed to move 192 members to new offices for the new session. www.aoc.gov/what-we-do/p... (via firstbranchforecast.substack.com from @americalabs.org)

I'm not the litigious type, but today I learned that I, along with maybe a million other authors, am suing Anthropic?

Eventually you’ve made enough things that you don’t have to hold on to everything you’ve made, it’s a very nice feeling to be able to curate yourself.

🤔

🤯! It checks out: 1 = 1 (1+8)² = 9 = (1+2)² (1+8+27)² = 36 = (1+2+3)² (1+8+27+64)² = 100 = (1+2+3+4)² (1+8+27+64+ 125)² = 225 = (1+2+3+4+5)²

How did I get this far in life and _just_ find out that every cube is a multiple of 9, ±1? 1³ = 1 = 0⸱9 +1 2³ = 8 = 1⸱9 -1 3³ = 27 = 3⸱9 +0 4³ = 64 = 7⸱9 +1 5³ = 125 = 14⸱9 -1 6³ = 216 = 24⸱9 +0 7³ = 343 = 38⸱9 +1 Proof is easy: any can be written as (3k-1)³, (3k)³, or (3k+1)³; then just expand.

I've heard the narrative that the Bike Lobby is finally getting its way and bike lanes are everywhere. But those lanes didn't become prevalent in the U.S. until they were bike/scooter/ebike/golf cart/vespa lanes.

When I was at Census, they taught me about Census's data sharing to facilitate the WWII Japanese internments on week one--employee orientation-level stuff. The cost of their acquiescence has been deep institutional regret, for decades.

I did the thing you are never supposed to do. I wrote a (rough draft of a) textbook: Theories of Rational Decision It's technical, but from a philosophical perspective. It focuses on the normative theory but touches on some behavioral issues as well. raw.githubusercontent.com/kzollman/Rat...

It's the day to declare independence from the Imperial--switch to Metric today!

I fact-checked my claim that _Topology: The interesting parts_ makes good beach reading by reading it on the beach last week; it worked ☑. I found a typo or two (notably an x where there should've been an ϵ on p 37) and have posted an updated edition. Get it at b--k.bandcamp.com/album/topolo... .

If it's not tested on animals, it's a selling point they put on the front of the bottle. If it is, it's "dermatologist tested", a selling point they put on the front of the bottle. Looking for other examples where the advertisers have it both ways.

They filmed _The Fugitive_ outside my place when I was living in Chicago, and I joined the crowd to watch the filming. Harrison Ford made eye contact and nodded at me.

There's not much to recommend about that other site, but there is still some good science communication there. Or, there was. It seems that US federal cuts to science are affecting that as well. All the more reason to ditch it, if you haven't already. 🚀 🧪 www.theregister.com/2025/06/11/n...

something that stands out about this is just how cheap it is for us to have world-leading scientific capacity we spent ~6.75 trillion last year, and the combined budgets for NIH, NSF and NASA are barely more than 1% of that what an incredible waste to lose it all for a drop in the bucket

Complementing other communications about the "Restoring Gold Standard Science" Executive Order, here is a statement from COS. Also, see the links to stories from previous attempts to co-opt open science for policies that undermine science and evidence-based policymaking. www.cos.io/about/news/c...

Here’s a picture of the FEC launch cake from “back in the day” - this came up at our #CfASummit session today. Launching the new FEC.gov on my birthday was one of my favorite 18F memories!

🧵 This is a nice movie of the Venus' night side produced by IR2, the infrared 2 μm camera aboard the Venus Climate Orbiter "Akatsuki", which was launched on 21 May 2010 by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to solve the atmosphere's mysteries on Venus. ➡️ isas.jaxa.jp/en/topics/00... 🔭 🧪

You know who else thinks Netanyahu has to go [1] and it's past time for a permanent ceasefire [2]? Most Israelis. [1] 60% think Netanyahu should resign: www.timesofisrael.com/poll-shows-n... [2] 72% would support a hostages for full ceasefire deal, Dec '24: www.timesofisrael.com/poll-majorit...

Loved working on this deep-dive into how mitochondria enable bird migration!

About 0.5% of U.S. goods exports are human blood. If we're going to close the trade deficit we'd better get pumpin'! dynomight.net/blood/

Has anyone yet run the headline "Math Major Elected Pope" ?!

The lion’s share of policy work is just constantly black hatting new proposals. You have to be able to think like a complete, irredeemable asshole. I was born for this.

DRM-free books have worked great. People who want to support me with a purchase support me. People who do not want to support me with a purchase will not be dissuaded by DRM. DRM is basically security theater for electronic files.

GPL FTW

Where did gold first appear in the early universe? It might have come from highly magnetized neutron stars! My latest for NASA: science.nasa.gov/universe/sta...

A 1943 pamphlet advising communities on how to deal with a racist or antisemitic "rabble rouser" who comes to town. digital-collections.csun.edu/digital/coll...

You deserve a break from doomscrolling. Here's a top ten list: b-k.medium.com/top-ten-pop-...

The only winning move is to not play. (People over 60 will get this reference.)

So yeah, if you have a very large English-language corpus that needs a good home you can always call Wordnik, we have a very nice word farm and your corpus will get lots of fresh air and attention. (Thanks Mignon!!)

Sometimes you get a really great essay in the form of a court ruling. If you've been following the Abrego Garcia case, I recommend taking a break from doomscrolling and giving it a read. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... h/t @jessicahuseman.bsky.social‬

Since I've found that some of our Insta sheltie friends are also DC Bar members, I'm posting this to all my socials. If you're a DC Bar member, PLEASE VOTE for bar leadership. I've never bothered before, but log in > Account > vote, it's easy! www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

In January, Musk declared that the IRS must provide a way for people to file their taxes online for free. Once he discovered that already existed, then he decided that it must be killed, because it is evidence that government worked well under Biden.

Registration's now open for the @dcswa.bsky.social premier annual event, Professional Development Day! Join us for a day full of workshops, panels, skills building, an editor meet-and-greet, and networking. It happens May 3 at the GWU (@gwu1821.bsky.social) Student Center. Register at www.dcswa.org.

Sorry English, Spanish wins this one: EN: shell corporation ES: sociedad fantasma